Never Again, Neverland
by LostGirl22
Summary: Sometimes, history has a habit of repeating itself in the strangest ways, even when you don't necessarily believe in it. Peter Pan/OC story. Terrible with summaries, apologies! M rating for possible future content.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Hello! I started this quite some time ago... I've been extremely busy lately, but I really do want to keep working on this... Whether or not there's a huge interest. Apologies if I don't update quickly, I'll try and update on my profile when I think the next shall be posted. Hope you all enjoy! :) And this is the first story I've written in quite some time. So comments, criticisms, compliments, whatever are encouraged!

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"Boy, why are you crying?"

I remember being little with my mother reading Peter Pan to me every night. I would refuse to sleep until she read at least part of it to me. I learned to read at an early age just so I could read it all to myself when she wouldn't. I don't think anyone, my mother included, ever understood why I loved the story of Peter Pan and Wendy so much… Perhaps even I didn't understand it. I would insist on having a blue ribbon in my hair and would constantly have blue as the primary color in my wardrobe when I was younger, just as Wendy in the movie had. To this day my favorite dress is a blue one. I would dream of going to Neverland all the time, I even had a window in my bedroom that I would leave open at night for Peter to come through. Mother would always close it though when I fell asleep. I was always so mad at her for that. I was on the second floor, no one was going to put that much effort into getting up would be my argument. One night, everything changed.

We lived in a fairly quiet neighborhood, full of families in each house. Almost every house looked the same with a few adjustments. I was nine years old and we had just had some new neighbors move in next door, not that it ever really meant anything to me. I was in my bedroom with the window open and I was reading Peter Pan when I heard someone crying. I walked over to my window and saw the new neighbor boy in his room across from mine, his window open as well. I was about to close my window, annoyed at this distraction from my favorite story, but I stopped. I observed him, he seemed to be about my age, with dusty blonde hair.

"Boy, why are you crying?" I asked him.

He sniffled, looked up and saw me. His face went from embarrassment to anger.

"I wasn't crying! And don't call me boy," he retorted.

I smiled softly. "Sorry… My name is Diana. What's your name?"

He eyed me before replying in a short manner, "Pete."

"Your name is Peter!" I gasped with wide eyes. "Just like Peter Pan!"

"It's Pete, no er! I don't know who Peter Pan is. Sounds dumb," he snorted.

I saw a flash of red. Never in my life had anyone spoken badly of Peter Pan to me. I was not about to let this cry baby get away with that.

"I'll have you know that Peter Pan is the bravest that there ever was! One day he's going to come take me away to Neverland. We're going to fight pirates together. You won't be invited" I said smugly.

"I wouldn't want to go anyways. I doubt that he's THAT brave," Pete retorted with an eyebrow raised.

"I can't believe you've never heard of Peter Pan. Where are you from?" I asked bluntly.

"I'm from here, just not this part of town. But our old house burned down while we were visiting my Grandma. So, now we're here. My mom keeps saying that we're really lucky we went to visit Grandma or else we could've gotten hurt."

"Oh. I'm sorry your old house burned down."

"Whatever. My room here is bigger here anyways."

There was silence for a while. I looked up at the stars, once again wishing I was in Neverland. The whole time I was very aware that the new boy was staring at me.

"How old are you?" he asked suddenly.

"Nine. You?"

"Ten. So I'm older. And I say you're too old for stories of pirates and stuff."

"I think you're too young to be saying that. Why ever would I want to stop reading and believing in these stories? I don't think you can ever be too old for stories."

"Whatever."

There was silence again. This time I really observed him. I couldn't really see his eyes, but there was something about the way he looked at me, at things. He seemed too serious for our age. There was something different about him. He was very different from what Peter Pan should be like.

"So you don't know about Peter Pan? Really?" I asked in disbelief.

"Well… I do, but I just never really heard the whole story. I've seen part of the movie," he said shrugging.

"The movie is good, but the book is just wonderful. You really should read it sometime. I read it all the time, it's been my favorite since before I can remember. I was reading it before your sniveling interrupted me."

He smiled. "Read it to me."

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

I looked at him and he seemed serious about it.

"Well, it's getting kind of late… Plus this whole time we've had to kind of whisper yell. I don't want to read like that."

He nodded in agreement and looked around. That's when he noticed, we both noticed, a tree between our houses. It was tall and thick and just the right distance between our houses for someone to climb upon and reach the other side. Sometimes things just work out in the right way.

"I'm coming over," he said as he ran to turn off his room light then climb out the window.

"Be careful!" I gasped as he reached for the tree. "Don't hurt yourself!"

He grinned at me as he got into the tree. "Oh come on, I'll be fine. My name is Peter, right? I can be like this Peter Pan of yours."

I blushed as I moved so he could climb in.

"Hi," he grinned at me.

"Hi," I said softly.

He walked past me and sat at the foot of my bed. "Well, you gonna read to me or what?" he asked softly.

Just then there was a knock at the door.

"Diana?"

We looked at each other with wide eyes. I pointed for him to hide under my bed and threw the comforter off to make sure he wouldn't be seen.

"Yes, Mom?" I said as I opened my door.

"Everything okay? I thought I heard something up here…"

"Oh, everything's fine. I was just walking back to bed and dropped Peter," I said, referring to my book.

"Oh, alright! Well Dad and I are going to sleep, so we'll see you in the morning. Don't stay up too late with Peter and don't forget to shut your window, night honey."

"Night Mom," I said as she hugged and kissed me. Then my Dad came over and I said goodnight to him as well.

I closed the door and shut off the ceiling light and turned on my desk lamp, so there wouldn't be as much light under the door. I waited a bit until I knew my parents were in their room which luckily was a ways from mine.

"It's safe now," I giggled.

Pete crawled out and grunted softly. "This better be a good story. I wasn't expecting to spend my night this way."

"How _were_ you expecting it to be?"

He looked away and didn't answer. So I sat on my bed and patted it for him to sit next to me. We settled in and got comfy and I started to read quietly.

"All children, except one, grow up…"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting! Thank you to those who have subscribed and commented. I really appreciate it :) Reviews and comments on the story and writing are much appreciated! I know this is short but I'm working on the next chapter as soon as this goes up! Hope everyone has had a great holiday!

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I wasn't able to read through the whole book that night, but Pete made me promise to finish reading him the story before he left. The next day my parents took me over with a plate of cookies to introduce ourselves to the Kensingtons, Pete's family. Pete and I both pretended we were meeting for the first time and shyly smiled at each other. Pete's mother hit it off instantly with my parents, especially with the fact that my mother was 5 months pregnant and Pete's mother appeared to be a baby fanatic. However Pete's father seemed a bit more stand offish, a little too polite, a little too quiet. He stared at me for a long time before extending his hand out to me to shake it. At the time I thought nothing of it, but later on I would recall the way Pete stared at his father as he did so.

It was summer when the Kensingtons moved in, making things quite easy for Pete to sneak over for our reading sessions. The first time that I finished reading the book Peter just sat for a bit before wordlessly going back to his room.

"Goodnight Pete," I called out as he was crawling out the window.

He stopped and smiled at me. "Call me Peter."

After that a month passed by without his visits, though occasionally we would see each other through the windows or outside and wave. One night Peter climbed right back over and before I could ask about his absences he made himself comfortable on my bed and grunted while pointing to the book. I rolled my eyes but picked up the book and started to read a bit. Eventually we ended up just talking and getting to know each other, which is how the nights eventually went. Sometimes we would read from the book, sometimes we would talk, sometimes a little of both. I told Peter of my excitement to have a new baby brother, and I had already told my parents that they better name him John or Michael. To that Peter replied with a gleam in his eye that I was silly, especially since my name wasn't Wendy and my hair was far too dark of a brown for me to even try to be Wendy. I pushed him off my bed which caused him to laugh. Unfortunately this caused such a noise that I had to hide him under my bed and pretend that I was laughing in my sleep when my mother walked in. To this day I'm surprised that she actually believed that.

During the last month of summer we would hang out outside of my room, usually with our moms, going to parks or the mall. Peter hated shopping, but when Molly, his mom asked if he would be willing to go clothes shopping with my mom and I, he agreed. We tried on a lot of clothes and it was a pretty successful trip. Peter was fairly indifferent the whole time, just shrugging when his mom had him try on clothes but I enjoyed trying dresses and skirts on, twirling around each time. Then I found THE dress, it was a simple, plain baby blue dress with a dark sash around the middle. I had to have it.

"You know the drill, try it on first to make sure it fits right or else you can't get it!" my mom reminded me.

I sighed but went along and tried it on. It was a perfect fit. As I walked out both my mom and Molly "ooo-ed" and "awe-ed".

"Pete! Doesn't Diana look nice?" Molly asked.

I turned to Peter and saw him smiling. "Eh. She looks okay."

I stuck my tongue out in response.

"Diana! That is not a very lady like thing to do," my mom berated.

I sighed and glared at Peter before changing back to my normal clothes. As we walked out of the store, Peter would try and give me flat tires or pull on my hair but I ignored him. I had found my perfect Wendy dress, nothing could bring me down.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Look! Two chapters in one night. :) Going to set work on the next. I'm going to try and speed things up coming up. Enjoy! :)

Oh, also Scarlet is a made up place, made up school. I chose Montana because it's random but I'm also very familiar with it... So it's a bit easier to write about it if I need to do things about the area!

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Once school started, I didn't see Peter as much mainly since he was a grade above me. Scarlet Elementary School wasn't very large since Scarlet, Montana wasn't a large city. Heck what place in Montana was large? Due to the size I was able to see Peter occasionally in the halls, but always during lunch. Our lunch and recesses didn't quite match up, the fifth graders would be sent to recess ten minutes after my class went to lunch and then they would be sent back in to class ten minutes after we were sent out. But for those twenty minutes each day Peter would make sure to find me and talk to me. Peter quickly made other friends and though they would always tease him, he didn't stop spending time with me.

That year went by way too quickly, Peter had become my new best friend. During the school year I had a new baby brother, John. My parents became pretty busy with him, which was fine. But I ended up spending more time with Peter because of it. I knew that once that year ended he would be off to the middle school, and though the year after I would be there too, it was sad to think that one of my best friend's wouldn't be at the same school as me. My other best friend, Julia would tease me about it.

"You like him, Diana, admit it!" Julia giggled.

I crinkled my nose at her. "I do not! He's my best friend, just like you. You hang out with him too at my house, you're going to miss him being here also, you know."

"Yes but see! We'll still hang out at your house. It'll be fine! Just because you won't see him at lunch doesn't mean the world is over, Diana. We still have one more week of school and then we can hang out all day during the summer."

"I guess you're right," I sighed. "You're coming over and spending the night tonight, right?"

"Yep!" Julia smiled.

"How are my two favorite fourth graders doing?" We looked up and saw Peter faintly smiling at us.

Julia rolled her eyes and frowned. "We're basically the only fourth graders that you know. It doesn't count."

"So?" Peter shrugged. "Listen I can't stay the whole time today, there's a dodge ball game outside that the gang has planned. But I'll see you guys on the bus, right?"

"Oh no, what will we do without having you here with us for ten. Whole. Minutes," Julia said before I could respond. I always admired her comebacks. I knew she had most of her wit from her older siblings.

"Okay, okay I get it. I'll see you guys later," Peter smiled brightly at me before heading outside.

"Sometimes I think that you're too much like your older siblings, Julia," I sighed.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

"Whatever. I had to reply before you could get all sad about him not spending time with us in the last few days of us all being at the school together. I saw that look on your face."

I stared at her before shaking my head. "You seem too old. Go away."

Julia just laughed and hugged me.

The last week of school went by quickly and then came the "graduation" ceremony for the fifth graders to celebrate their journey to middle school. Afterwards was a small party at the Kensington's house. It was a joint party for Peter and some of his friends, mainly a lot of parents just eating and talking while us kids played. It was actually pretty fun, until James, Peter's dad started arguing with another kid's dad. Molly tried to get him to calm down but by then the party was pretty much over. That night I sat in my room that night, trying to not listen to the arguing between Molly and James but it was kind of difficult with my window open.

"Diana, darling?"

I look up to see my mom in my room. "Hm?"

"Why don't we close this window for now… We can open it back up for Peter later," she smiled.

I sat there for a second, not knowing if she meant Pan or Kensington. But then I smiled and said okay. After she closed the window, Mother sat by me on the bed and hugged me.

"You know your Father and I love you a lot, right?"

"Yeah," I said looking up at her.

Just then my dad walked in with John in his arms. "We know this has been a rough year, getting into the flow of things with John and everything. But you've done really well and you've been a big help!" he beamed at me.

Dad put John in my arms and I smiled. "He's my baby brother. Of course I want to help."

My parents both smiled as I tickled his cheeks. "You've really grown up since he was born! Just remember to not grow up too fast…" Mom said.

"Mom! I can't do that. If I grow up then I can't go to Neverland!" I joked.

Just then John laughed, as if he understood and knew how silly it was. My dad laughed and said, "Hey! I guess that means a new faerie was just born!"

My parents then took John and said goodnight to me before leaving my room and closing the door. I sighed before looking over to my window. I saw a light go on, then off, then on and off quickly again. I smiled and did the same with my lamp before going to open my window up.

I noticed that it was quiet now, no more arguing and that most of the lights were off in the Kensington's house. I sat in bed and a few minutes later Peter came into my room.

"Hey," Peter said quietly.

"Hey," I smiled. "How does it feel to be a middle schooler?"

"I'll let you know when I find out," he laughed.

It was silent for a bit before Peter came to sit on my bed.

"Are your parents okay?" I asked.

Peter looked away for a bit before responding. "Yeah. They're fine."

Silence fell upon the room again.

"Tell me a story."

Peter blinked at me a few times. "What?"

"I always have to read a Peter Pan story to you. Now it's your turn to tell ME a story."

"I suppose that seems fair… Hmmm…"

I smiled as he looked thoughtfully at my ceiling. Finally he scooted next to me and started.

"Once upon a time," he started.

"Oh, this is going to be good!" I interrupted.

"Obviously. Once upon a time, there was a cat. And she went to go play with the dog next door. Then she got run over. The end."

I stared at Peter for a long time, who had an amused look on his face.

"That was awful. You can't tell stories anymore.


End file.
